I think Facebook (meta)‘s key asset is now WhatsApp.

Facebook is practically dead. It’s just a stream of awful content that isn’t from your friends. It’s hyper advertising and desperate attempts to clone other platforms as it slowly dies. It’ll continue for a long time, eventually becoming yahoo like, but young people do not care about it at all.

Instagram has similarly been over monetised but in an earlier stage. It has been roundly defeated by TikTok, utterly destroyed by TikTok, in the battle for teens’ attention.

Oculus was a great buy but the gap (in terms of years) between instagram’s peak and oculus really coming online is just too wide to “save” the company.

In contrast, WhatsApp is still used across the generations. It’s the one platform where grandparents and grandkids are both active users.

If I were Zuck then I’d focus on turning WhatsApp into an Asian-style chat platform with integrated services. That I can’t wire money on WhatsApp in the U.K. is I think a very very big strategic error on his part.

It seems clear Facebook (meta) can’t build anything truly new, but they can certainly extend platforms - they should focus on WhatsApp. It has longevity, strong network effects, and huge potential. Just don’t use ads and destroy it.

Otoh Facebook deserves to die so I hope he continues to think oculus will save them.

k_bx

Ukraine is of course no major market for Facebook, but it's a good example that doesn't match what you describe at all. In Ukraine, Facebook is the place where you follow top journalists, anti-corruption people, activists, and other public figures. It's basically an extremely valuable addition to the media, where anyone can be lifted in popularity in a matter of hours if their content is truly important. Facebook has been an invaluable tool during the Maidan revolution in 2014 combining its social and video-streaming capabilities. It works in times where media is breaking down, being bought by oligarchs, and isn't to be relied upon.

I don't see any alternative that would replace it, in terms of being social, everyone being present on it, and allowing long text+image+video content to be posted and spread easily.

grishka

Facebook has only become as popular in Ukraine as it is to fill the void created by the government blocking VKontakte. And some Ukrainians I know do still use VKontakte despite that.

k_bx

Yeah, a wise decision by our government indeed. However, one of the major reasons Vkontakte is popular is due to it being filled with illegal music and video content without bothering to remove it, at least most people I know amongst its still-users keep using it exactly for that.

grishka

Oh, no, it's now kinda useless for that too unless you somewhat go out of your way. They've signed contracts with recording companies and "legalized" most of the music several years ago, killing off the public API (audio.* methods), adding ads (which I've never heard thanks to my ad blocker, but still) and imposing ever more nonsensical client-side restrictions in mobile apps (which I use an old version of) that are removed by buying a subscription.

But — despite Mail.Ru Group doing its best to ruin it, it's still way better than Facebook. There's a chronological feed even! And they aren't brave enough to ruin that.

Full disclosure: I worked at VK on the official Android app for 5 years, most of that as the only Android developer in the entire company. I quit in 2016 because of growing disagreement with the management about our goals. VK still has a lot of sentimental value for me because it literally changed my life, multiple times over.

Anyway, if you do want the experience of the OG VK but without FSB and all the other perils that come with centralization, you can follow the development of my ActivityPub project: https://github.com/grishka/Smithereen